Mr. Chair, understood, agreed. The CEO will be going into Tulita to meet with the staff and attempt to address the problem and give us a better idea of how long it will take to address. I will absolutely keep the Member informed as we move forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. We will continue on with detail questions on page 34. I have Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have one question and I want to ask it around the Stanton Hospital renovation project. We had a number of questions and answers yesterday, and at one point, I believe it was Minister Miltenberger who stated that there was a good business case to make this renovation a P3 project. I thought to myself, okay, yes there might be a good business case, but I have been advised and I have done a little searching myself and have found that hospitals are not necessarily the best projects for P3. There are some pretty damming reports out there about other jurisdictions that have done P3 projects with hospitals.

So, I’d like to know from the Minister, if he can tell me, in the consideration for making the Stanton Renewal Project a P3 project, what consideration was given to positive or negative results from other P3 projects across the country. Did you rely simply on the business case and on the numbers, or did

you look at, sort of, the soft information that was out there and the projects or negative reports of projects which are out there to be considered? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The lead on this project on the construction is the Department of Finance. They were the ones who would have been doing the analysis on the P3, so I would like to go to the Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We brought in some professionals on this and they did a survey of the landscape. While there are clearly incidents where things maybe didn’t work according to plan, there are also many instances when they did. They looked at all of those issues, they looked at what was being proposed here, the type of projects, and when they came back with their recommendation, it said that from the balance of all these factors that there is a business case to be made for this project to proceed as a P3.

Keeping in mind all the considerations that have been talked about here today, the fact that it is not privatization, we will continue to run the programs and own the programs, and this is a deal on the building of the infrastructure and some of the hard services. We are looking at that. It was last March. From what I have read and understand, the document was shared with committee, and on that basis we are proceeding forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Ms. Bisaro.

That’s fine. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Continuing with questions on page 34, I have Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Minister of Finance has indicated that if the bids come in high that we would not go forward, or possibly not go forward with a P3, and if our borrowing limit requests come in, we might have some capacity to do it ourselves and do that. Is the Minister aware of that and supportive of that situation? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. For that we are actually going to go directly to Minister Miltenberger. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As with all projects, Public Works will be managing the infrastructure project itself, per se, but clearly when the value for money, the issue comes as we proceed with the P3 and that is where

we finally go and the prices come in way off the mark, then I will have to look very carefully at the cause of that.

This is not a project that is a cost-plus where money is not an object. It is $350 million. So if that includes looking at other ways of building the project, of course we will look at that. We want to get the best, highest quality project that we can on budget and on time.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, if any project comes in over budget, no matter what method we use, we look very carefully at that project. We would rather scale them back or we would retender or do different things to make sure we try to live within the dollars available. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it’s understood and I think the Ministers would agree that public infrastructure is generally cheaper because there is not a profit motive. In this case, bringing in a private enterprise, there is a profit motive. Motivation for doing this is that we are short on capital and this is a mechanism to get around that. But it is more expensive than a public project, so I just want to confirm that that’s the reasoning for going for a P3 here. Thank you.

Okay. We are going to go to the Minister lead on this project. Minister Miltenberger.

Mr. Chairman, that is not in fact the case. We are looking at a P3 procurement approach, first because our policy obligates us to for projects over $50 million. We had a lot of discussion around this whole P3 approach around the bridge, which wasn’t actually a P3 project. It is a recognized, valuable method of building infrastructure that’s used out around the world and across Canada. Issues like public interest are paramount. The value for money has to be demonstrable. Appropriate public control and ownership, as the Minister of Health has said, will be preserved. We have to have a clear accountability framework, and whatever we do on this process, as per our policy, will be fair and transparent and, of course, sufficient and economical. This is an opportunity to put that to work and see.

I point out again, as well, we’re doing a similar type of process with the Mackenzie Valley fibre link, a much smaller project in terms of size and cost but of considerable value in its own right. So, we want to see if this is in fact the case.

There was a lot of heated debate last time and initially there were thoughts that the project of the bridge would be a P3 but that quickly proved not to be the case, so this time we’re taking another look at it. There was a P3 project done way back in the

1990s in the 13th Assembly. First try at it, it was not

an overwhelming success. Very expensive. This whole concept has evolved considerably since then and we will be monitoring it closely. We will be working with committee as we do this step by step and make sure that we hit all these critical principles. Thank you.

The bridge was certainly a P3 project and it was a failed P3 project and it cost us a lot to get out of that and we did it then as a project of public government. I wasn’t aware that we are obligated for projects over $50 million to use a P3 policy. I thought it provided the opportunity to allow us to look at P3s. So, that’s quite a finesse by Cabinet, so maybe I would like to just get confirmation of that if I could. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Again we’ll go to the lead Minister. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For projects over $50 million, the policy requires us to look at whether the P3 approach is a viable approach to be considered, and we have done that. The business case has been done and the assessment comes in that yes, it is a viable project and the business case is there under the P3 approach, hence the consideration. Thank you.

Thanks for that confirmation by the Minister. So, what are the long-term consequences of this P3 project? Can you describe what the ramifications are to Stanton public infrastructure, its operation and maintenance, potentially, over the course of time?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.

Mr. Chair, we’re looking to build a state-of-the-art facility to meet the health needs of the residents of the Northwest Territories that will be maintained and operated for a significant number of years moving forward.

I would certainly hope it would be maintained and operated for a significant number of years. What I’m looking for is who is going to maintain and operate the hospital and for how many years before this public infrastructure returns to the public.